Tom Smith - A Balanced Life: Nine Strategies for Coping with the Mental Health Problems of a Loved One

A Balanced Life

Strategies for Coping with the Mental Health Problems of a Loved One

TOM SMITH

Hazelden Publishing

Center City, Minnesota 55012

800-328-9000
hazelden.org/bookstore

2008 by Tom Smith

All rights reserved. Published 2008

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwisewithout the express written permission of the publisher. Failure to comply with these terms may expose you to legal action and damages for copyright infringement.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Tom, 1940

A balanced life : nine strategies for coping with the mental health problems of a loved one / Tom Smith. 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-59285-662-6 (softcover)

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-59285-809-5

1. Mentally illCare. 2. Mentally illFamily relationships. 3. Mentally illAnecdotes. I. Title.

RC439.5.S646 2008

362.196'89dc22

2008018794

Editors note

The names, details, and circumstances may have been changed to protect the privacy of those mentioned in this publication.

This publication is not intended as a substitute for the advice of health care professionals.

Alcoholics Anonymous and AA are registered trademarks of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.

The content on page 34 and page 36 from People Skills by Robert Bolton has been reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group. Copyright 1979 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Cover design by Theresa Gedig

Interior design by Ann Sudmeier

Typesetting by BookMobile Design and Publishing Services

To our support group, which meets on the first and third Thursday of every month:

You experienced and refined these strategies before they were a book. Thank you for your stories of hope, and for your inspiration, courage, and wisdom.

Contents

Medication

Counseling

Education

Self-Esteem

Acceptance

Self-Care

Intentional Networks

Warning Signs

Faith

Types of Mental Disorders

Substance Use Disorders

Acknowledgments

This book reflects both the painful and the joyful experiences of many people who are the families and friends of a loved one with mental health problems. Through listening to their stories, many of which mirror my own life, I was encouraged to write this book. In particular, I am grateful to the members of the Karla Smith Foundations Hope for a Balanced Life support groupa group for the family and friends of people with mental illness. Some of them contributed stories of hope for this book, and I appreciate their honesty in sharing their experiences and their courage in seeking solutions to difficult life situations.

Janie Bloomer, Margie Jones, and Emily Smith read an early version of this book and offered valuable input into the content, format, and style of the text. Thank you again. Fran, my wife, and Kevin, our son, lived this material with me before it became words on a page. Their love, hope, commitment, and talent gave birth to the concept, purpose, and shape of the book, and I am continually grateful to them not only for their love and support but for their very practical help in creating this book. Sid Farrar, my editor at Hazelden Publishing, provided more than an expert analysis of the text. His additions and deletions improved the material to an extent beyond my original expectations. I appreciate his expertise and also his obvious passion for the subject matter, his genuine kindness, thoughtfulness, humility, and encouragement. He is a trusted advisor, and I am blessed.

Finally, and sadly, I am grateful to my daughter, Karla. I certainly wish it were otherwise, but her struggle with bipolar disorder and her suicide introduced me, on a personal level, to the world of mental illness. This book honors her memory, as she would want it.

Preface

This book flows from my familys own experience. Our realization that this book was needed, and the eventual form it took, were shaped by our story. That story is still unfolding, but here I will share its beginnings with you.

My wife, Fran, and I had been married two years when our twins, Kevin and Karla, were born. Throughout their childhood and adolescence, we were a normal, happy, middle-class family dealing with the predictable issues of family life and parenting.

Then, very suddenly in January 1996, when Karla was nineteen and beginning the second semester of her sophomore year in college, she fell into her first major depression. She abandoned school, came home, crawled beneath the covers of her bed, and barely left her room.

We sought help from a psychiatrist and a counselor. With medication and counseling, Karla eventually came out of the depression, but only after her first suicide attempt. In the summer and fall of 1998, she experienced her first major manic episode. After several torturous and bizarre months, she ended up in a mental health treatment center in Las Vegas, New Mexico, where she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

There were more emotional and behavioral ups and downs, but eventually she stabilized enough to go back to college and earn a 4.0 GPA. She was about to graduate when, in the summer of 2002, she slipped into another devastating, four-month manic phasewhich then cycled into an even more destructive depression in November and December.

On New Years Eve, after Karla lapsed into a suicidal, catatonic state, Fran took her to a behavioral health care center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she was admitted. On January 10, the center released her against our wishes. Three days later, she found a hidden .22-caliber rifle, held it to her chest, pulled the trigger, and died instantly as the bullet ripped through her aorta. She was twenty-six, beautiful, intelligent, and charming, with a promising future. And she was dead.

Our grief remains profound. In the aftermath of her suicide and in memory of her, Fran, Kevin, and I did two specific things. First, we wrote a book, The Tattered Tapestry, describing our familys experience with Karlas bipolar illness, her suicide, and our own continuing grief. Second, we formed the Karla Smith Foundation, whose mission is to provide hope for a balanced life to family and friends of anyone with a mental illness or who lost a loved one to suicide. Its Web site is at www.karlasmithfoundation.org. In service of this mission, the Foundation teaches and promotes nine strategies for coping with the mental disorder of a loved one. These strategies emerged from our own experience of Karlas bipolar illness, the shared stories of others in similar situations, and our research through books, conferences, videos, and the Internet.

This book, A Balanced Life, is the result of our experience and research. Its nine chapters reflect the nine strategies. Each includes a commentary on that strategy, real-life stories of hope from those who have used it, and a series of questions for personal reflection and group discussion. Together, these strategies form the guiding material of the Karla Smith Foundations support groups for the family and friends of a loved one with mental health problems.